Greenhouse and heater question.

[troutman]

If you have extra room in your greenhouse. Large black barrels filled with water
will capture heat during the day and moderate the night temperature a little.

Watch this video.

Extending greenhouse growing season using water barrels for heat retention

 

[CrushnYuba]

Barrels don't really work. Passive solar greenhouses do. The chinese really got it down.

Heating the root zone is nothing new. Maybe a little expensive though. I know people that do it on a large scale hydronicaly. Warm roots and cold foliage doesn't make plants thrive. They just do ok. When the warm soil starts heating the air and the radient heat, heats the foliage, they thrive.

 

[Bleiweis]

Really interesting this passive solar greenhouse!

https://bradford.missouri.edu/passive-solar-greenhouse/

It find it cool that they provide all the info about building one. Too bad that it's so costly. Plus you lose some space due to the barrels.

Contemplating if it's sensible to build one in my backyard...i'm a bit limited with my sunlight (in the summer max. 10 hours during the day in the summer).

CrushnYuba did you build any of these yet?

 

[Rico Swazi]

Studies have been done on the cost for long term greenhouse heating and everything I have read shows heating the soil to be a better option in terms of ROI



https://www.bing.com/search?q=Supplemental+Heating+in+a+High+Tunnel&pc=MOZI&form=MOZCON

Conclusions Both above and in-ground supplemental heating can increase high tunnel fruit and vegetable production. In-ground heating is a more efficient heating method as it targets just the soil the plant is growing

in. When using above-ground heating the entire air space of the tunnel is heated, increasing cost. This additional cost is often justifiable when used infrequently on very cold nights. However, for long-term consistent heating above-ground heating may not be economically viable.

If there are studies showing otherwise, I'd like to see them
(preferably studies not sponsored by the oil/gas conglomerate)


Solar mass heating is marginal at best here in the PNW
foggy all day

 

[CrushnYuba]

When I'm talking about passive solar greenhouses, I'm talking about the chinese style ones. The North, east and south walls are very thick brick or clay. The clear roof and south walls get covered at night by roll down blankets. If you do want to heat them at night with the roll down blankets down they are super easy to heat.

I think for the most part, using propane or NG to heat greenhouses is not really worth it. Hydronic radient floor is definitely more efficient then convection air heating. The setup cost on radient floor/soil is way high and labor intensive. You have to run a million miles of Pex. Setups like that are not just heating soil. You are heating the foliage. It's just radient heat like in garages or homes. You lose allot less heat to the greenhouse glazing. That's way different then just soil heating with some electric coils. Never had a greenhouse with a radient floor, but i have set them up before. Besides the shitload of pex, you still have fittings, boiler, expansion tanks, circulator pumps, relief valves. It's allot.

I will stick with pellet heat. Few bucks a bag.

 

[Rico Swazi]

passive solar is the same concept the tribes in Brazil used in their walipini design and not limited or exclusive to the Chinese culture
my water table gets near surface so instead of digging down Years ago, I built a fairly large wofati greenhouse .Made it like a keyhole garden with approx 140 deg. of corrugated glazing to the east and south . Had to tear it down as it hindered drainage. Looking for pics.
I agree for commercial purpose radiant floor heating would be best but as I understand it, the OP just wants to grow a few plants and veggies and doesn't want to break the bank doing so.
my set up that you see cost me 40 bucks for the heating mats lights and fan and only 6 bucks a month to run.

I'll make that up in e.coli free lettuce .

You grow any food Crushin?

 

[CrushnYuba]

I wish i grew more food. I just don't have the time. Food is grown on my properties. I just don't have anything to do with it. I have some greenhouses that aren't used anymore that i want to repurpose.
I will most likely grow ornamentals and turn them into some sort of atrium though.

I'm going to build a very small mini greenhouse for storing genetics that I'm going to share with the forum. Heated with a small rv diesel furnace.